


Untitled Post-April 8th Episode Fic

by atlanticslide



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3709181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlanticslide/pseuds/atlanticslide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chas and Robert share some hard truths while waiting for Aaron to wake up in the hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled Post-April 8th Episode Fic

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably be jossed almost immediately, but it was floating around my head today and I had to get it out. Apologies for the lack of title.

The doctors are running tests so they’re shuffled outside of the room, forced to stand idly, uselessly outside, looking in through a window. Just as well, maybe; Robert was getting antsy with the incessant beeping of Aaron’s heart monitor and unable to take sitting there in one spot much longer.

“You don’t have to stay,” Chas tells him for about the fifth time. He rolls his eyes, but keeps quiet. It’s a wonder that she’s even let him get near the hospital at all, let alone all the way into Aaron’s room and at his bedside, and he’s got no idea why she’s not been spitting rage at him for the past few hours they’ve been here waiting for Aaron to wake, but he knows when not to test his chances. Sometimes, anyway. 

“It’s fine,” he tells her, keeping his eyes on Aaron through the glass separating them. “Don’t have anywhere else I have to be just now.” It’s mostly true.

They don’t speak for a long time after that. There are a couple of doctors in the room, one opening Aaron’s eyelids to shine a light over his eyes as the other looks at one of the monitors and jots down notes. Robert feels nauseous, wishing they would hurry _up_ so they could get to explaining how bad the injuries are and when he’ll be better, be out of here.

“He hates hospitals,” Chas murmurs after a few minutes, so quiet Robert isn’t quite sure she’s actually spoken. “He’d never say it out loud, of course. But I’ve seen it, anytime we’ve found ourselves here. He just hates it.”

Mostly, Robert wishes she would just go _away_ , go back home or go get some coffee or go drive off a bridge, just get away from him. But she’s piqued his curiosity; this is something he doesn’t know about Aaron.

There’s a lot he still doesn’t know about Aaron, and it makes his stomach churn to watch the doctors frowning over him as they confer with their notes. It makes his stomach churn to think about Chas’s words earlier, her _threats_. There are so many ways in which he could lose Aaron, lose Chrissie, lose _everything_ today, and he should be at home, should be in self-preservation mode, but he can’t make himself leave yet. 

“Why’s that?” he ventures, looking at Chas sideways.

She shrugs, doesn’t look back at him. Her eyes are still on Aaron. “Too many bad experiences. Not much different from most folks who hate hospitals, I’d reckon.” 

She’s quiet again for a long moment, and Robert’s just about ready to tell her to stuff her sarcasm, even though she sounded more tired and sad than sarcastic, really, when she speaks again.

“Jackson was in here for ages. Aaron spent so much time here. Gave up his whole life, practically.”

Aaron’s only ever spoken of Jackson in passing, hushed and in a hurry to get the words out like he didn’t really want to speak them but felt he should, and Robert’s never quite known what to do with the information so he never pressed for more than the bare bones of it. It’s strange, now, even to hear this bit. It almost sounds like she’s talking about a different person.

“Before that…” she goes on, and then trails off, closes her eyes for a long moment. “He spent a week in here wishing he was dead.”

That makes Robert’s stomach drop like a weight, and Chas chooses that moment to throw a glance his way, just in time to catch the shock he can’t manage to hide from his face.

“Didn’t know about that, did you?” she says, and it’s not really a question. It makes him want to smack her, but the urge is chased away quickly by shock settling back in. 

He _didn’t_ know, and he looks back through the window and wonders how many other secrets Aaron has kept to himself. They’ve talked about Jackson, barely, and talked about the cutting, a bit, and Robert has the deep urge to know all of these things, to really know Aaron the way he’d like to think he’s begun to, but there’s still more, still these grenades lying around every corner, waiting to go off when he discovers something new. He doesn’t know what to do with this information. 

“He couldn’t stand it,” Chas tells him, voice tight. “Being gay. He thought… well, he thought so many things. You have no idea.” Her voice starts shaking and Robert doesn’t look back at her, can’t turn and stand there next to her and watch her cry. “You have no _idea_ what it was like, standing here like this, watching him struggle to breathe, and knowing - knowing that he didn’t even want to.” 

His heart starts beating fast and uncomfortable, heavy in his chest even for how fast it’s racing. He wants to know these things about Aaron but he doesn’t want to hear them, doesn’t know how to hear them. 

Chas wipes tears from her eyes, clears her throat and seems to be trying to get the shake out of her voice. “I never cared about him being gay. No one did, except for him. Boys, girls… it doesn’t matter.”

She clears her throat again and leans one shoulder against the glass, still not looking back at Robert.

“I just want him to be happy,” she goes on, quieter now. “To be loved. He hasn’t had that enough in his life.”

There’s still something unsaid in her words, but he can’t quite pin it down and doesn’t know what to make of all of this. He just wants her to _understand_ , so maybe she can leave him alone. Leave them both alone. 

“I _do_ love him,” he tells her. It’s foolish to say the words out loud, especially to her. Something like that should always be kept close to one’s chest and never shared freely with an enemy, but he feels frayed, ragged, desperate to stop her from spoiling things, and desperate not to be kicked out of Aaron’s hospital room. 

She turns to look at him and he looks back at her, daring her to doubt him or kick him out or threaten him again. 

“Not enough,” she says, sounding more sad than anything else, which throws him for a loop. “Not enough to leave your perfect wife and your mansion and your cushy job and your perfect life.”

He hates her. He really hates her so much, rage boiling up in him and threatening to come bursting out in a wave of violence and desperate words, because she’s right, and he hates her for it. He wants to be able to love someone and them to love him back and for it to be enough, but it never is. He wants to make Aaron happy, he wants to stay closed up inside with him in the cocoon they’d shared this past week where it was just comfort and laughing and sex and lazing against one another. He wants Aaron to make _him_ happy, and he wants Chrissie and wants the estate and wants the job and the money and the power and none of it is enough and he’ll never quite understand why. 

They stare at one another for a long time, he and Chas, before Robert backs down, unable to take her scrutinizing gaze any longer, and turns back to watch Aaron through the window, feeling his skin beginning to crawl. He can’t stand here with her any longer, can’t look at Aaron any longer with what’s been said. 

Swallowing hard, he tears his gaze away from Aaron and fishes into his coat pocket for his wallet, pulling out a business card. He grabs a pen from a table nearby and jots down his mobile number, then tosses the pen away and shoves the card at Chas.

“Call me when he wakes up - or when the doctors tell you something,” he says, straightening up and looking her in the eye, making it a challenge. She doesn’t answer, doesn’t move to take the card, and he doesn’t back down. holding it out for her until she finally does reach up to take it and puts it into her pocket, eyeing him warily the whole time. He’s not sure if she’s still planning on telling Chrissie anything; he’s not even sure if she’ll actually call him when there’s any change in Aaron’s condition. But it feels like a truce, or at least a momentary cease-fire. 

He goes out to his car and ends up sitting there in it in the car park for a long time, thinking about a few days ago when he’d woken up to find Aaron drooling on his shoulder and watched him sleep for almost an hour before he woke.

He gets a text later, when he’s back at his desk in the office at home and shuffling through paperwork that he’s been putting off doing for weeks, his phone buzzes with a new text. 

_He’s awake. Docs said he can have visitors till 8._

He doesn’t stop to grab his coat on his way out the door.


End file.
